Welcome!

I want to welcome you to The Strega's Story, which is a blog created to help me muddle through the process of finishing my book about my Italian-American family. A strega is loosely translated in Italian as a witch; my great-grandmother was a strega. She wasn't exactly a witch, however; she did know charms and spells, but was generally more like a curandera or folk healer. My book describes what it was like to have such a powerful woman in my life; it truly affected the way I saw the world and continues to influence my life to this day. A large portion of the book centers around the death of my grandfather, John Indrisano, who was a champion boxer and went on to become a stunt man, boxing choreographer for films, and small-role actor for three decades. He left my grandmother to pursue an eleven-year dalliance with Mae West, and eventually committed suicide by hanging in 1968, on my mother's birthday. His suicide devastated my family, particularly my mother. This section of the book was the most difficult to write and I am still taking it through revisions, trying to really touch the heart of that terrible event and how it affected my family.

I recently graduated from an MFA program and The Strega's Story was my MFA thesis. I am currently entering the process of getting the book to agents, a process of which I am actually quite terrified. I will be presenting portions of my book at academic conferences this coming year and I'll otherwise be hitting the pavement to get the book into the public eye. I will be presenting a portion of the book in late October 2005 at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association's conference in Idaho, and hopefully at the Italian-American Historical Association's conference in November 2005 as well. In the meantime, I am working on getting portions of the book published, as several chapters have been worked into short pieces.